The US military is facing a "historic challenge" as it attempts to counter Iran’s vast arsenal of “low-cost” drones and ballistic missiles, says a new report.
Nearly two weeks into the US aggression against the Islamic Republic, Tehran has managed to significantly strain American military inventories, Bloomberg reported, citing military experts and Pentagon officials.
The American publication wrote that US forces have been forced to dig deep into inventories of expensive, hard-to-replace interceptors to counter the Iranian barrage.
It stated that the US and its Persian Gulf allies have fired over 1,000 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors—nearly double the annual production capacity of these weapons.
“The United States led the long-range precision strike revolution, and this is the first war where we’re seeing the adversary have that kind of capability,” Bloomberg quoted Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center.
“It’s putting stress on the system that we haven’t seen before,” Grieco added.
Iranian armed forces have been carrying out retaliatory attacks on US military assets in regional countries since the US started an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran on February 28.
Just after the US-Israeli airstrikes began, Iran launched more than 300 ballistic missiles at US assets around the Persian Gulf, “along with streams of Shahed one-way attack weapons," according to the report.
The analysis highlighted a staggering cost imbalance. While each Iranian Shahed drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000, the Patriot missiles used to down them cost approximately $4 million each.
Furthermore, a radar for the $300 million THAAD air-defense system—the most advanced US ground-based defense—was damaged in Jordan by an Iranian missile strike.
The report said the destruction of at least seven MQ-9 Reaper drones by Iran’s 358 missiles has challenged the US “air supremacy” seen in previous wars.
It said the Pentagon spent $5.6 billion on munitions alone in just the first two days of the war.
Experts now warn that replacing these "high-demand, low-density" precision weapons could take years for the Pentagon due to limited manufacturing capacity.
“It’s a race to see will our inventories get low before the Iranian missile inventories get low,” said Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace stated that the Trump administration “appears to have underestimated Iran's tolerance for pain and its ability to inflict it in return."
The report concludes by citing experts who warn that the continued depletion of US advanced interceptors remains a critical concern for Washington’s long-term military readiness as the war rages toward its third week.
Commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Major General Ali Abdollahi said on Sunday that the US and Israeli regime have always made miscalculations regarding Iran.
Abdollahi stated that the Islamic Republic is in possession of advanced weapons with high precision, which are beyond the enemy's assessment of the country’s military power.
The general reiterated that Iran will keep the war on with the US and Israel until they regret launching the aggression against the Islamic Republic.
Volker Turk has warned that efforts to advance reparatory justice are facing resistance in “certain quarters,” and urged countries to back Africa’s push.
Reparatory justice for historical crimes, including colonialism, enslavement, and the trade in enslaved Africans, is crucial to dismantling systemic racism, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has said.
Speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent on Tuesday, Turk linked present-day discrimination against people from the continent to the enduring legacy of colonialism and enslavement.
”Racism and dehumanizing rhetoric continue to permeate public institutions, communities, and online platforms,” he said, according to the UN Press Service. Turk noted that “digital technologies, including AI, are reproducing and amplifying existing biases against people of African descent.”
The remarks come weeks after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest...
The US VP had to defend President Trump’s Gaza policy at a rally on a Georgia college campus.
US Vice President J.D. Vance was forced to defend Washington’s policy in Gaza after he was booed and heckled at a key MAGA event on Wednesday.
Co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is a conservative student group that has long been seen as a strong support base of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement but is now showing apparent cracks.
Less than 15 minutes into a TPUSA event at the University of Georgia on Wednesday, Vance was interrupted by hecklers over US policy in Gaza, with one audience member shouting, “Jesus Christ does not support genocide!” As he attempted to respond, others shouted, “You’re killing children!” and “You’re bombing children!”
Vance replied by referring to Trump’s achievements as president, including securing a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, something he said the previous administration of Joe Biden failed to do.
“I ...
Sergey Shoigu has cautioned Finland and the Baltic states against allowing Kiev to use their airspace for attacks on Russia.
Russia would have the right to retaliate if Finland and the Baltic states are deliberately allowing Ukrainian drones to pass through their airspace, Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu said on Thursday.
“Recently, there has been an increase in Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia via Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,” Shoigu told journalists. “As a result, civilians are suffering and significant damage is being caused to civilian infrastructure.”
Either Western air defenses are proving ineffective, or these four countries “deliberately provide their airspace, thereby becoming open accomplices in aggression against Russia,” he added. In the latter case, Moscow has the right to self-defense in response to an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the security chief stressed.
In recent weeks, Kiev has intensified drone strikes on ...
